Another One Bites the Dust: SWG Edition!

[UnSub]

What I liked was the ambush. I was just reading it, thinking to myself "blah blah, typical po- holy shit, it just got awesome!"

All it needs is a chalkboard to show the connections.

The blog has a picture.

It didn't set off my trolldar precisely because the crazy was so deeply placed. You've have to read a lot of the usual complaints to get to that particular bit.

[Sjofn]

Ha! Yes, that would make it just about perfect.

[Lantyssa]

Also, the sequence of events went: design expansion pack, sell pre-orders, then suddenly decide to replace all gameplay mechanisms with broken new stuff, just before the expansion launched, breaking both the existing game and the expansion, while keeping people's money.

Mostly right, but I believe the NGE was announced the day after the expansion released, and implemented 15 days after.  So it was an extra fuck you and PR nightmare.

[Malakili]

Also, the sequence of events went: design expansion pack, sell pre-orders, then suddenly decide to replace all gameplay mechanisms with broken new stuff, just before the expansion launched, breaking both the existing game and the expansion, while keeping people's money.

Mostly right, but I believe the NGE was announced the day after the expansion released, and implemented 15 days after.  So it was an extra fuck you and PR nightmare.

Didn't they end up offering refunds for Trials of Obi-Wan?  Not that it matters that much, the damage was already done.

[Sky]

The NGE could not be played. They broke the game. It consisted of a cool Star Warsy tutorial that spat you out into an unfinished total game redesign, implemented on a whim from a test project, that was still missing core systems.

This. I actually enjoyed the NGE. I had fun in the early crafted stages. There were a couple 'dark jedi' decision points where a master spoke to you. You could ally up with the Imperial faction. Then...it abruptly ended.

And in no way should they ever have done anything negative against the community and craftards who were the core of the game. As I've said before in this thread, with them there, the action part of the game was much richer and more immersive. The best pvp I had in UO was as a militia unit for the roleplaying community.

[Ginaz]

Also, the sequence of events went: design expansion pack, sell pre-orders, then suddenly decide to replace all gameplay mechanisms with broken new stuff, just before the expansion launched, breaking both the existing game and the expansion, while keeping people's money.

Mostly right, but I believe the NGE was announced the day after the expansion released, and implemented 15 days after.  So it was an extra fuck you and PR nightmare.

Didn't they end up offering refunds for Trials of Obi-Wan?  Not that it matters that much, the damage was already done.

They did, but I suspect it was more to do with legal reasons (fraud?) than out of the goodness of their hearts.

[Lantyssa]

They weren't going to at first, but then people were calling for a class action suit with that kind of bait-and-switch.  It really was a disaster in so many ways it's unimaginable.

[Surlyboi]

They weren't going to at first, but then people were calling for a class action suit with that kind of bait-and-switch.  It really was a disaster in so many ways it's unimaginable.

Unimaginable except for the fact that it happened. That and the recurring, "we lost all the original code, so we can't go back" excuse. Who the fuck does that? The whole fucking debacle was so clownshoes that if it hadn't actually happened, yeah, anyone bringing it up as a hypothetical would have been laughed at.

[WayAbvPar]

This thread has made me more interested in SWG than at any other time after my early beta invite 

I would love to see Raph give us a sandbox unbeholden to some draconian IP master. Set it in the Wild West- other than Call of Juarez and RDR, that genre has been critically underused and underappreciated. Hell, I would pay $20 Six Gun Shootout with updated graphics and UI today!

[Malakili]

This thread has made me more interested in SWG than at any other time after my early beta invite 

I would love to see Raph give us a sandbox unbeholden to some draconian IP master. Set it in the Wild West- other than Call of Juarez and RDR, that genre has been critically underused and underappreciated. Hell, I would pay $20 Six Gun Shootout with updated graphics and UI today!

I was hoping Fallen Earth was going to go in this direction actually.

[koro]

The NGE could not be played. They broke the game. It consisted of a cool Star Warsy tutorial that spat you out into an unfinished total game redesign, implemented on a whim from a test project, that was still missing core systems.

This. I actually enjoyed the NGE. I had fun in the early crafted stages. There were a couple 'dark jedi' decision points where a master spoke to you. You could ally up with the Imperial faction. Then...it abruptly ended.

And in no way should they ever have done anything negative against the community and craftards who were the core of the game. As I've said before in this thread, with them there, the action part of the game was much richer and more immersive. The best pvp I had in UO was as a militia unit for the roleplaying community.

I played SWG briefly with my girlfriend (who was a launch-until-CU vet) post-NGE, and one of the first things I noticed when I got dropped off on Tattooine after the tutorial - besides the massive amount of credit seller spam - was that, even two years after the NGE hit, weapons and items for professions that no longer existed would still drop because they hadn't had the staff or the time to clean up the database and flush out all the old items.

I always felt that was a perfect introduction to the NGE.

Oh, and there was also the weird balance kick SOE was on for it at the time. A few weeks before I played, Sony felt that players were xping too fast solo, so they completely fucking broke slightly tweaked the aggro system so that more of a mob spawn would attack you at once, practically necessitating group play (or a respec into Jedi or Bounty Hunter) past a pretty low level. But then shortly after, they felt that the people grouping up to xp were leveling too fast, so they completely fucking broke slightly tweaked the group xp system so that you got less xp by being grouped. The only problem was, just one other person in your group slashed your xp/hour by 40% through xp reductions alone, and it got worse from then on. Pretty much the only way to level was via powerleveling, and it sucked.

[Nevermore]

This thread has made me more interested in SWG than at any other time after my early beta invite 

I would love to see Raph give us a sandbox unbeholden to some draconian IP master. Set it in the Wild West- other than Call of Juarez and RDR, that genre has been critically underused and underappreciated. Hell, I would pay $20 Six Gun Shootout with updated graphics and UI today!

He should hook up with Shane Hensley and do a Deadlands game. 

[UnSub]

The Deadlands MMO was started at FireSky / Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment. It didn't end well and now Hensley is back at Cryptic (who would probably be open to developing a Deadlands MMO...).

Videos (linked through my blog) found here and here.

Lots of people SAY they want a sandbox, but turn their noses up at the sandboxes available because they aren't the right kind of sandbox.

[Riggswolfe]

Lots of people SAY they want a sandbox, but turn their noses up at the sandboxes available because they aren't the right kind of sandbox.

It is my belief that sandboxes tend to fail because they are difficult to do correctly:

UO, it was a griefer paradise when it first launched and never really recovered. If it had launched as Trammel it might have held on for awhile though its graphics would have doomed it eventually.

SWG, launched early with some poorly thought out designs. HAM, no vehicles or space, etc

EVE, a niche hit for people that don't mind spreadsheets in their MMO.

[Malakili]

Lots of people SAY they want a sandbox, but turn their noses up at the sandboxes available because they aren't the right kind of sandbox.

Its really the time.  I love the idea of the sandbox still, but when you have that much freedom to do things, if you aren't actively in game DOING them, you're going to be falling way behind / becoming irrelevant really quick, and since these things also usually have a strong player driven/PvP component that matters.  You can't have as much fun in the sandbox if you are still using a plastic toy shovel and everyone else is using a backhoe.  Something like Minecraft is probably a great example of how to do a casual sandbox, and look how enormously popular that is.

Example:  EVE - I would change very little about EVE if I was given the opportunity, still, at the end of the year, there a much better chance I'll have a sub to SWTOR - which took me literally 2 years to come to peace with for not being sandboxy enough - than EVE, simply because I don't have the kind of time required to play EVE that way I'd want to play it, and if I'm going to have 10 hours to play an MMO a week, I'm going to pick one that is friendly to that schedule.

[Fordel]

What always cracked me up about EVE, you could turn the game into a Turn Based browser game and as long as you kept a little flash graphic of your ship in station that the player could spin, no one would notice for months.  

[WindupAtheist]

The problem is that every time someone goes to make a sandbox MMO, it's some broke-dick indie that probably couldn't publish a successful flash game trying to sell some sort of over-the-top Wurmesque hellworld of a virtual universe which, even if it worked as advertised, would only appeal to the absolute beardiest of necks and griefers who like to work for weeks to earn their jollies. I just want to own a little stone tower out in the woods and tame a wolf to be my pet, not spend two hours on a forty-step crafting process making turnip soup so I don't starve into permadeath.

Think of everything bad you can say about latter-era UO and then remember that despite EVERYTHING the game still has enough life left in it to have active development and a dozens-strong Live Events team, even as it's years-newer successors go into their graves. I keep saying this but it's worth repeating: Remake this with modern tech while avoiding the mistakes of the past and designing with expandability in mind, and you can probably grab a few hundred thousand people and gross $50 million a year basically forever.

Let people have their own houses and shops that they can customize from the ground up. (Instanced, in the world, or a combination.) Let them dress up however the hell they want, and design their own character types from a list of skills. Have things wear out but be replaceable so crafting is 'meaningful' but keep the power curve relatively shallow so it isn't TOO meaningful. Have PVP but make it consentual depending on server type.

Put in sandbox elements but don't go so fucking hardcore with them that they shit up the game. It's not THAT hard. It's sure as hell a more viable business plan than a lot of this indie shit seems to have.

[Tale]

Let people have their own houses and shops that they can customize from the ground up. (Instanced, in the world, or a combination.) Let them dress up however the hell they want, and design their own character types from a list of skills. Have things wear out but be replaceable so crafting is 'meaningful' but keep the power curve relatively shallow so it isn't TOO meaningful. Have PVP but make it consentual depending on server type.

Except for the "too meaningful" crafting, that part of your post does describe SWG.

This could lead to a discussion of PvP consent and TEFs (temporary enemy flag, a contagious PvP+ timer acquired through faction-linked actions). So I'll say it now. Anyone who claims a TEF they didn't understand is essentially Jason with the password Jason1, baffled he got hacked. He shot at a rival faction's NPC and forgot. He healed a PvP+ ally. He healed someone who had healed a PvP+ ally. He was ganked before he knew it. Jason is still mad at Raph.

[Merusk]

I am not and I resent the implication that I never understood TEF. 

And the whole "too meaningful" crafting bit is a HUGE "except for."  It's like saying "Release-build UO was the best game ever, except for the ganking, stealing and bugs."

[palmer_eldritch]

The problem is that every time someone goes to make a sandbox MMO, it's some broke-dick indie that probably couldn't publish a successful flash game trying to sell some sort of over-the-top Wurmesque hellworld of a virtual universe which, even if it worked as advertised, would only appeal to the absolute beardiest of necks and griefers who like to work for weeks to earn their jollies. I just want to own a little stone tower out in the woods and tame a wolf to be my pet, not spend two hours on a forty-step crafting process making turnip soup so I don't starve into permadeath.

Think of everything bad you can say about latter-era UO and then remember that despite EVERYTHING the game still has enough life left in it to have active development and a dozens-strong Live Events team, even as it's years-newer successors go into their graves. I keep saying this but it's worth repeating: Remake this with modern tech while avoiding the mistakes of the past and designing with expandability in mind, and you can probably grab a few hundred thousand people and gross $50 million a year basically forever.

Let people have their own houses and shops that they can customize from the ground up. (Instanced, in the world, or a combination.) Let them dress up however the hell they want, and design their own character types from a list of skills. Have things wear out but be replaceable so crafting is 'meaningful' but keep the power curve relatively shallow so it isn't TOO meaningful. Have PVP but make it consentual depending on server type.

Put in sandbox elements but don't go so fucking hardcore with them that they shit up the game. It's not THAT hard. It's sure as hell a more viable business plan than a lot of this indie shit seems to have.

How did a man who is so wrong about SWG write such a good post?

[luckton]

So besides Eve, is there a choice MMO that the SWG crowd is jumping ship to?

[5150]

Apparently there's a player petition about not closing SWG down and making it F2P.

I'd wish them luck but I wouldn't go back even if it was F2P (logged in exactly once during my free 45 days) and if we couldn't get NGE rolled back I doubt they'll get F2P.

[Lantyssa]

How did a man who is so wrong about SWG write such a good post?

Because he's a professional troll, but actually has a good eye for the important bits of making a great game.

[UnSub]

Apparently there's a player petition about not closing SWG down and making it F2P.

SOE isn't shutting SWG down because they are tired of it; they are shutting it down because they can't agree with LucasArts on the licensing contract. If SOE could make SWG F2P, they probably would.

[Comstar]

So besides Eve, is there a choice MMO that the SWG crowd is jumping ship to?

Perptuuumm. Mechs instead of ships, and like Eve was 5 years ago. So not really a replacement.

Otherwise, join BAT COUNTRY in EVE ONLINE: GOONSWARM FEDERATION 2011 the next generation.

[Surlyboi]

Or Fallen Earth. Especially after it goes F2P.

[Raph]

Lots of people SAY they want a sandbox, but turn their noses up at the sandboxes available because they aren't the right kind of sandbox.

It is my belief that sandboxes tend to fail because they are difficult to do correctly:

UO, it was a griefer paradise when it first launched and never really recovered. If it had launched as Trammel it might have held on for awhile though its graphics would have doomed it eventually.

SWG, launched early with some poorly thought out designs. HAM, no vehicles or space, etc

EVE, a niche hit for people that don't mind spreadsheets in their MMO.

Your definition of failure is weird. UO "not held on for a while"? It's still running and has made crazy bank over its lifetime. All those games have made hundreds of millions of dollars.

I (gasp) think WUA is right.

[Morat20]

There's an X-factor at work here, in the more sandbox games. What encourages "stickiness"? Not to the game, but to other people? Forming communities.

SWG worked for crafters so much not just because of a complex crafting system -- heck, they could have been doing it puzzle-pirates for all I think it really matters (although there is something to be said for a mini-game that feels 'real', rather than obvious minigame) -- but because crafters networked with each other and then combat types coalesced around them.

There was an interdependence there, where the very top tiers couldn't really be satisifed with stuff bought off of vendors. They had to find other top-tier crafters, from other professions, and trade components and make custom orders. Which drew in top-tier rangers and scouts to bring in materials.

But why did it work in SWG, despite the game's numerous and glaring flaws (sorry, Raph, but it was a mess in a lot of places)? I think that's sort of a 'why Facebook and not MySpace' sort of question.

Or heck, why EVE? Something about people forming real, if virtual, communities. Groups that aren't just there to bring down mass DPS on a raid-target (which requires, among other things, leadership, a sizeable bulk logged on a the same time, etc) but even if logged on at 2:00 AM are still feeling like they're a valued contributer to their Guild, City, PA or whatever.

I can't do EVE battles because I can't do 3:00 AM shit. It was hard as hell to make a regular 10 or 25 man raid, just once a week, in WoW. But in SWG I could log-on, play the way I wanted (build shit, explore, set factories to running, futz over my vendors) and feel like I was contributing. I could see it in the msgs I got (people asking if I could make certain things for them, make certain components), in the stuff moving on and off my vendors, or just knowing that farming birds on Dantooine wasn't "kill for XP and maybe loot" but filling a doctor's needs.

*shrug*. You want sandbox? I think you *must* give people reasons to band together, encourage them to interconnect -- but you can't mandate they all have to be on at the same damn time, or have an actual leader willing to herd cats. You need organic connections and the flexibility to fufill them in the player's own time.

It's a game, not a job.

[Ingmar]

At the same time being dependent on other players too much can be detrimental, because when people who you rely on to do whatever it is you do quit, it is often a lot easier to walk away yourself than to rebuild all those relationships with new people all over again (and again, and again, given the way MMO populations turn over.)

[KallDrexx]

People claim they want a sandbox, but people (whether they admit it or not) also need direction and focus or else they will sit there and go "wtf should I do now" and their interest will start to wane.  A lot of people need someone (something) to tell them what to do, and providing a sandbox but also giving direction/focus to those who need it is hard from a design perspective and is getting harder with more choices in games that focus more on giving players direction (WoW and most MMOs that come out). 

[WindupAtheist]

Except for the "too meaningful" crafting, that part of your post does describe SWG.

Actually, now that I think about it, current-day UO crafting is probably "too meaningful" by my standards. So I guess I don't mind as much as I thought I did. I have a dedicated crafter I keep in touch with who made my armor for a good price, as well as the armor of four or five different people I referred to him, and to whom I give right of first refusal when I have crafting materials to sell.

I guess I may as well describe the system. It's been around for a couple years now.


I don't mind it. I can have a custom suit made that looks like whatever I want with whatever stats I want, crafters get to enjoy making the best stuff, and since a lot of the resources come from PVE the crafters need fighters like me in more than just a "Someone has to buy this shit!" sense.

One of these sandbox indies that crops up from time to time needs to try building/refining a system like this. Not just coming up with one where creating a sword hilt takes 37 steps because they think sandbox = tedium.

EDIT: Really the problem with SWG was the SW part. Make it a fantasy game without all the expectations the Star Wars license places upon it, and I'd have probably played it. The developers wouldn't have felt like it needed to be NGE'd to be more "iconic", and it probably wouldn't be getting shut down right now.

[Morat20]

At the same time being dependent on other players too much can be detrimental, because when people who you rely on to do whatever it is you do quit, it is often a lot easier to walk away yourself than to rebuild all those relationships with new people all over again (and again, and again, given the way MMO populations turn over.)

Very true. One of the things SWG did right on that was player-owned vendors and their Auction House stuff. (Admittedly, it would have been better if people could FIND them more easily at the beginning, and the AH wasn't so limited. I understand they wanted people to use vendors, but people couldn't get to vendors).

A casual player could go get decent gear easily enough, and then move on. The communities formed more around the 'experienced' players -- casuals would transition there when they started to want a steady supply of good gear, trusted people to play with, customers for their own goods or loot, and access to better housing/shuttles/etc.

SWG did lack some obvious direction for players, though. I was lucky to join with a few friends giving us a pre-built group and a variety of useful skills -- and some information sharing.

[5150]

There's an X-factor at work here, in the more sandbox games. What encourages "stickiness"? Not to the game, but to other people? Forming communities.

SWG worked for crafters so much not just because of a complex crafting system -- heck, they could have been doing it puzzle-pirates for all I think it really matters (although there is something to be said for a mini-game that feels 'real', rather than obvious minigame) -- but because crafters networked with each other and then combat types coalesced around them.

There was an interdependence there, where the very top tiers couldn't really be satisifed with stuff bought off of vendors. They had to find other top-tier crafters, from other professions, and trade components and make custom orders. Which drew in top-tier rangers and scouts to bring in materials.

But why did it work in SWG, despite the game's numerous and glaring flaws (sorry, Raph, but it was a mess in a lot of places)? I think that's sort of a 'why Facebook and not MySpace' sort of question.

Or heck, why EVE? Something about people forming real, if virtual, communities. Groups that aren't just there to bring down mass DPS on a raid-target (which requires, among other things, leadership, a sizeable bulk logged on a the same time, etc) but even if logged on at 2:00 AM are still feeling like they're a valued contributer to their Guild, City, PA or whatever.

I think the enforced 'downtime' worked here (medical centres, cantinas, shuttles/starports). As much as some of the players bitched so hard it eventually got these thigs removed they forced the players to not only depend on each other but the be around each other (as opposed to grinding xp on Darthomir until your doctor buffs ran out the rest of the time). This was a good thing even though most players didnt seem to realise/appreciate this (which is why the customer isnt always right).

Now you just use global vendor search (or whatever they called it) and jump in your spaceship (or insta starport travel if you are a newbie) to buy stuff and never see a doctor or entertainer again (to the best of my knowledge, I couldnt do combat after they turned me into Lando!)

[Ingmar]

Uh, no. If the bitching is as universal as that the customer is almost certainly right. They're paying to have fun (in theory), a system like that is a huge anti-fun wall for most people.

[Morat20]

Uh, no. If the bitching is as universal as that the customer is almost certainly right. They're paying to have fun (in theory), a system like that is a huge anti-fun wall for most people.

Not...exactly. You have to look a bit deeper. People are often, to be blunt, really confused about what they want. In games, especially complex ones, they often don't realize what would happen if they GOT what they wanted.

And then, more importantly, there's the fact that the loudest whiner isn't "your customers". I don't envy the poor folks whose job is to wade through cancellations, forum whinings, feedback surveys, and polls to find the sticky spots and then pass them onto the designers who have to figure out what should be fixed, what can be fixed, and what effects it's likely to have.

IIRC, the "happiest" the SWG forums and playerbase ever was was during a six-month or so period when the Dev team did NOTHING but basically tackle, one after another, a serious of really annoying issues -- most of them simple bugs, bad GUI choices, and broken mechanics. There weren't a lot of fixes that altered gameplay, other than making it work 'as intended' more than anything.

There's no use removing, for instance, gameplay mechanics in place to drive increased socialization if the result will be players screaming just as loudly that they never see anyone again.

The real sticky spots are a lot harder to find than listening to forum bitchings, because the plain and simple matter is that the biggest forum bitchers (and thus generally the loudest voices) are people who don't want 'a better game' so much as they want 'my guy to be better'.

it may be one of those things with no real 'solution' -- make Devs play the game? They focus on how they want to play it. Listen to cancelled subs? Those guys probably aren't coming back, no matter what you do. Listen to current players? Which ones? The whiny min-maxers? The "I care only about my specific class and this specific weapon" guys? The ones who want more raids? The ones who want more sandbox?

My personal thought is if you find a developer, community correspondent, PR guy, tester -- anyone -- with a feel for teasing out the REAL sticky shit from the whining -- pay that guy a ton and listen to him. :)